It’s hard to keep up with fashion at the best of times. One minute everybody’s wearing chinos, the next they’re all sporting low-cut vests and half-haircuts.
With men’s fashion constantly in a state of flux, it’s inevitable that you’ve probably made a few rash decisions in the past that you’ve lived to regret. Here are a selection of fashion mistakes that every man has made.
Socks and Sandals
The allure of pairing socks with sandals is too potent to ignore. Socks are the most comfortable of footwear, though combining them with shoes can prove to be restrictive for your poor toes and, on sunny days, stifling. That’s where the sandals come into play. They allow for some breathing room for your precious tootsies, whilst still allowing them to stay tucked up in that warm, woolen fabric.
You may not have succumbed to the charms of socks and sandals just yet, but it will happen. As you get older, your hair grows grey and your skin becomes worn out and cavernous, with your forehead’s frown lines resembling trenches in the Battle of the Somme. This is when you will care least about your appearance, and will therefore not care about leaving your house wearing this ugly-but-practical combination.
Brown on black
Teaming a brown item of clothing with a black item of clothing rarely looks good, but chances are that you will have done it at some point in your life, even if you have done so unwittingly.
Black goes so well with practically all other colors, but for some reason it just doesn’t mesh with brown. No one truly knows why, but I suppose it’s a bit like spreading chocolate dip across a steak – both taste nice when kept separate, but you’d likely vomit if you were to eat both simultaneously.
Crocs
The worst fashion offense of all, Crocs never have and never will look good no matter who wears them.
While you likely wouldn’t be caught dead in a pair now, chances are that your parents forced you to wear them when you were a child when you didn’t know any better. While they’re certainly more manageable to strap around a child’s foot than a pair of sandals, that still doesn’t make them look any less vile and ridiculous, and frankly, you should confront your parents about this act of abuse.
Hawaiian shirts
Hawaiian shirts look like a lot of fun, but so does bungee jumping.
Wearing an Hawaiian shirt makes you look like a tourist even if you’re in your home country, and are worn almost exclusively by middle-aged men with little to no clue on how to dress well, or twenty-somethings with ludicrous mustaches who wear them ironically. If you’re neither of those people, then stay away from them unless you’re actually in Hawaii.
Ill-fitting suit jackets
You’ve got a wedding coming up and need to buy a suit in a hurry, but you just don’t have the time for all that tailoring nonsense so you decide to buy one off the rack. We’ve all done it. Unfortunately, if you failed to even try it on prior to purchasing it and simply picked up one that was your size the last time you had your measurements taken, then there’s a strong likelihood that it’ll either be oversized or undersized, depending on how many carbohydrates you’ve been consuming since then.
Ill-fitted suit jackets are a common theme at weddings, thanks to there always being an abundance of men attending who don’t typically tend to wear suits. You’ll either see a guy with buttons on his blazer that look like they’re about to pop off and blind a relative, or a guy wearing a jacket with sleeves that practically stretch to his knees that give him the appearance of the Slender Man.
Photo: Getty Images
